Moonshadow by Thea Harrison
Behind the other woman, Sophie could see the monster pulling itself out of the hole in the plaster. She told Maggie, “Run.”
As Maggie raced out of the room, Sophie didn’t wait to watch the monster finish extricating itself from the ruined wall. Her spells called for close quarters and being proactive. Striding forward, she swiped at the monster’s shoulder, activating the corrosive spell and skipping back several paces.
While she watched, the spell began to eat away at the monster’s shoulder. With a final yank that pulled down half the wall in a cloud of plaster dust, the monster broke free and tried to swipe at its shoulder.
At the same time, the monkey leaped on her back and shrieked in her ear again. She snapped, “Not helpful!”
The monster fixed on her. Even as the corrosive spell consumed flesh and bone, it began to stalk her from across the room.
Her mind raced. Option: run until the corrosive spell ate it up. That sounded like a great one, but for the next several moments, it could run too, and she had already seen for herself that these monsters were much faster than she was.
As she backed up, it advanced.
She had one telekinesis spell and one corrosive spell left. Both necessitated her getting within biting distance of those wicked teeth. This was going to suck so bad.
Calmly she told the monkey, “Go on, Robin.”
The monkey pinched her ear painfully. Ow! Not helpful!
Keeping her eyes on the advancing monster, she edged toward the door. With one hand, she plucked the monkey off her shoulder and threw it through the doorway. The monster’s reddened eyes tracked the movement. For a moment she thought it was going to go after Robin. Then its attention came back to fix on her. It gathered itself, and she tensed.
It was going to leap, and when it did, it wouldn’t be expecting her to dive forward, because that would be Stupid and Crazy™. But if she could get underneath it, she could punch it as hard as she could with her last telekinesis spell.
After that, she didn’t know what she was going to do. One step at a time.
The monster leaped, and she dove forward. The maneuver didn’t turn out as well as she had hoped. She landed hard on the floor and didn’t flip over fast enough to get a punch in as it sailed overhead, so when it spun around to face her again, she was lying on her back looking up at it.
Good news: she still had the telekinesis spell. Bad news: she was going to have to use it while she faced all those killer teeth head-on.
Before she could roll away, it limped forward and landed on top of her, driving the breath out of her lungs. Gods, it was so heavy she couldn’t move. The corrosive spell had eaten away one shoulder and part of its torso, and she didn’t know how it was still moving, but it was.
Why didn’t it go down?
It bared massive teeth and snaked its head down to her. She fought to grab hold of its neck and keep that giant muzzle at bay, at least long enough for the stupid creature to realize it was dying.
Behind it, an avenging angel appeared, lean, dark, and fast, and wearing the same chilling, ferocious expression she remembered from the first time she had seen him.
Who’da thunk it? She was actually glad to see that terrifying asshole.
He had his sword drawn, and it was dripping with blood again. His eyes blazed with dark fire as he whirled to strike. She felt the blow shudder through the monster’s body as Nikolas decapitated it.
The head flew through the air, and she lost track of where it went as a fountain of blood gushed over her. She managed to get one arm over her eyes before the warm wetness drenched her, while the monster’s body collapsed heavily over hers.
Shouts sounded outside, and sirens, but in the room, silence fell.
Sophie peered out from underneath her arm. Nikolas stood over her, breathing heavily, and his hard, beautiful face wore an expression she didn’t know how to identify. Anger? Relief? Incredulity?
He pointed the dripping tip of his sword at her and said between his teeth, “Are you insane? You ran into the building.”
She wiped monster blood off her lips. “Apparently, so did you.”
He glared at her, while behind him, the weight of something heavy creaked on the stairs. Before she had a chance to call out a warning, Nikolas had already whirled. He was ready when another one of the monsters rushed down into the room and attacked.
Sophie struggled to get out from under the dead weight lying on top of her. The monster lunged, and Nikolas danced to one side, the blade of his sword flashing silver and crimson. As she wriggled free and rolled to her feet, Nikolas hit a pool of blood and skidded, going down on one knee. Flawlessly he shifted position with his sword to cover his fall, as the monster bunched its muscles to leap at him.
Both Nikolas and the monster were wholly focused on each other. Taking advantage of that preoccupation, she jumped forward and slapped the monster on the haunch with the telekinesis spell. The blow spun it around and knocked it sidelong into the damaged wall, which brought a fresh rain of plaster down.
When it whirled toward her with a snarl, Nikolas had gained his feet and was standing between them. In a powerful, full-body swing, he decapitated the monster. Wincing, she watched the head spin into the air and bounce into one corner.
Silence fell again. Outside, sirens approached, and she could hear people shouting. None of it touched the room, where she and Nikolas stood staring at each other. Plaster dust floated in the air like white powdery snow, coating the sprays and pools of deep, liquid red.
Nikolas threw his sword down, strode over and grabbed her shoulders. “Are you hurt? Did you get bitten?”
“What?” She didn’t understand his blazing expression, and her attention wandered back over the scene. The monster that had landed on her was gone, and in its place lay a dead, decapitated man.
What. The. Fuck.
He shook her urgently. “Sophie, did one of them bite you?”
“No! I’m fine!” She tried to shrug off his hold. “I know I must look like Carrie at the high school prom, but none of this is my blood. Nikolas, where did the monster go?”
He looked where she gestured, at the body of the man nearby. He told her grimly, “That is the monster.”
She nodded. It was the only thing that made sense. As he bent to pick up his sword, she turned and walked through the ruined front room, out into the cool night air.
As she stepped outside, Maggie and Arran rushed at her. She fielded questions and effusive, tearful thanks as best she could, while the police arrived. Then she fielded questions from them too, answering everything patiently, sometimes multiple times. No stranger to crime scenes, she felt a tired calm settle over her as she watched them cordon off the area.
Since Sophie was a latecomer to the scene, the police focused much of their questioning on Arran and Maggie, and when Nikolas stepped outside, they focused on him too, giving her room to breathe.
Walking several yards away to get some space, she drew in deep breaths of the cool, damp air. A neighboring woman brought her a warm, wet towel, a hot cup of tea, and a blanket.
“Don’t worry about the towel or the blanket, love,” the woman told her when Sophie tried to refuse it. “They’re old, ragged things, and it doesn’t matter in the slightest if you get blood on them.”
Thanking her, Sophie moved several yards to the side and used the towel to wipe off the worst of the blood from her face and hands. Then, as the night had turned damp and cool, she pulled the blanket around her shoulders and sat at the curb to drink the tea. It was hot, creamy and sweet. It wasn’t how she usually drank tea, but it was utterly delicious.
When she sat at the curb, the monkey reappeared. It climbed up her body and pushed its way into the blanket, chittering at her grumpily.
“Don’t you be grumpy at me,” she told it as she put an arm around it. “I’m very annoyed with you right now. What was all that pinching about?”
The monkey bitched back at her wordlessly, dark eyes snapping.
It fell silent and huddled against her side.
Why hadn’t anybody remarked on the monkey? Granted, the scene in the pub was dramatic in its horror, but a monkey was quite an oddity. Couldn’t they see it, or was the puck cloaking himself? She gave up questioning and focused on drinking her tea.
Black-clad legs appeared beside her, the material streaked in blood. As she looked up, Nikolas squatted beside her. Dark hair fell on the strong plane of his brow, and his expression was shuttered. He carried a mug of tea too.
She told him, “I’m surprised you stayed to talk to the police. I half expected you to disappear out the back when they arrived.”
“I almost did,” he said. “But too many people had seen me, and you’d given your statement before you and I had a chance to discuss it. Besides, I might come into town again. Better to be upfront. We didn’t do anything wrong, and we prevented more people from getting killed.”
She nodded. “So, about those werewolf-y looking monsters.”
“They’re werewolves,” he replied.
She took a deep breath. “Is that why you said it wasn’t wise to roam the countryside during full moon?”
“Yes, although London and other urban areas are worse.”
“London.” She set her mug down on the curb and turned to look at him. “You’re saying there are werewolves, in London? Like the song—‘Werewolves of London’?”
He raised one sleek eyebrow. “Of course. That’s where the song came from. Didn’t you know?”
A laugh barked out of her. When a nearby man frowned at her, she covered her mouth to muffle the noise. When she could speak again, she said, “No, I didn’t know.”
“You don’t have werewolves in the States, do you?”
Lifting one shoulder, she replied, “I don’t know, we might. I don’t know of any. If we do, they aren’t prevalent enough to reach the news. The only wolves I know of are Wyr shapeshifters, which isn’t the same thing.” She paused, frowning. “I guess I shouldn’t take anything for granted. What do you mean when you say ‘werewolf’? Are we talking about the same thing?”
“I mean lycanthropy, a virus. It was why I was so worried about your being bitten. A victim who has been bitten has only a short window of time to get treatment before the virus becomes irreversible.” He shifted closer to her and said in a low voice, “Those weren’t just normal werewolves that attacked the pub.”
That was another unwelcome set of concepts. There was such a thing as normal werewolves? And abnormal ones?
Sophie watched his mouth as he shaped his words. Really, he had the sexiest mouth she had ever seen.
Fascinated and feeling as if she had stepped into a strange dream, she murmured, “How could you tell?”
“Werewolves by law are required to register with the National Health Service and cage themselves during the full moon. There are public cages available for those who don’t have the ability to build one for themselves. Those that don’t cage themselves run wild. They’re undisciplined and chaotic, like rabid dogs, and they hunt down animals to feed on—rabbits, deer, unwary humans. They don’t break into houses to attack people.” He set his mug beside hers. “The ones that broke into the pub here did so for a reason. They were acting under orders, which means they were the Queen’s Hounds.”
Under the blanket, the monkey was shivering. She put her head in her hands and said telepathically, Isabeau has a legion of werewolves?
Yes, but her werewolves don’t need the full moon in order to change. They can change at will, and they band together and strategize. Gawain believes they can telepathize even in their bestial form. He paused. That means either her Hounds were searching for Robin, or they were searching for me. Since we killed all of them, we can hope that nobody else has become aware of your presence yet. Switching to verbal speech, he said softly, “You still have time to back out and go home.”
“LA isn’t my home,” she muttered. “It’s just a place where I stayed for a while.”
Lifting the edge of the blanket, she looked at the creature nestled inside. Large dark eyes watched her from the deep shadow. The filmy cloudiness had vanished, and he watched her with sharp intelligence. She noticed his skewed eye had straightened. If that could heal, it must have been damage he sustained in captivity.
With a gentle finger, she urged him to open his mouth, and he did so obligingly. A new bud of flesh had appeared at the stump at the base of his mouth. He was regrowing his tongue. He was still too thin, and he needed a series of meals to correct that, but he was healing. Maybe as he recovered he would begin to speak again.
Watching her, Nikolas said, “You’re not going to leave, are you?”
“Nope,” she said. “Although I’m going to leave here.”
Setting the monkey on the ground, she pushed stiffly to her feet. Now that the battle was over, she was beginning to feel every bruise and ache. Sharp pain radiated out from her weak side, and somehow her shoulder had gotten wrenched. She wrapped her arm around her torso protectively.
The tea had given her a small boost of energy, but heavy exhaustion dragged at her, and she knew she had a limited amount of time before she had to go horizontal.
Nikolas had straightened to his full height when she had, and he was watching her sharply. He took a step closer until she could sense his body heat along one side of her body. “You said you weren’t bitten, but you were hurt, weren’t you?”
“Soft tissue stuff,” she said in brief reply. “I strained old injuries. I’ll be okay, but I need your help. Would you carry my luggage down to the car? I can’t stay here.”
“Of course you can’t. Let’s go get your things.”
The police had the front of the building cordoned off, so they walked together around to the back entrance. Maggie broke away from her husband and a cluster of neighbors to hurry over to them. “I can’t thank you enough for what you did,” she said to them. She looked at Sophie. “You risked your life to save mine.”
Guilt gnawed at Sophie, much like the corrosive spell. If she and Robin hadn’t been at the pub to begin with, the attack would never have happened. She met Nikolas’s eyes and saw a dark understanding. Then she turned to Maggie. “I’m glad there was something I could do. I can’t stay here tonight, so I’ll get my things.”
“Of course you can’t, love, but where will you go at this time of night?”
“I’ll go ahead and go to the cottage.”
Maggie’s expression creased. “It’ll be cold, and the bed will be unmade, and you won’t have any supplies with you. And I don’t like how isolated that old moldy place is.”
“It’s all right,” Sophie told her. “It doesn’t matter. I like isolation. It’ll be a roof over my head, and I can get groceries in the morning.”
“I’ll stay with her,” Nikolas told the other woman. “She won’t be alone.”
He would? Sophie raised her eyebrows as she looked at him pointedly. Thanks for asking, asshole.
He looked magnificently impervious to her speaking glance. Actually, truly magnificent. His innately elegant, erect carriage and the imperious tilt of his head drew glances from everyone around them. The fact that Sophie was affected by it irritated her to no end. With an effort, she had to restrain herself from making a face at him.
“Well… all right,” Maggie said reluctantly. “But at least let me gather some things together for you, love.” As Sophie started to protest, the other woman insisted. “Just a small box to get you started.”
Let her help you. Nikolas’s deep telepathic voice sounded unexpectedly in her head. It’s a small thing, and it will make her feel better about your leaving.
Sophie glowered at him, and when that look rolled off his broad shoulders too, she said to Maggie, “That would be wonderful. Thank you.”
“I won’t be just a minute.” Maggie hurried into her shattered kitchen, muttering under her breath at the mess.
Si
There was no need for her to unlock the door to her room. Like the front entrance to the pub, there was no door. She paused in the doorway to take in the mess inside.
The furniture had been knocked askew, and the bed had been shredded.
She took in a deep breath and glanced over her shoulder. Nikolas’s expression was grim. He nodded in the direction of the rest of the hall. As she looked down the hall, she realized all the other doors were still intact and closed.
Her stomach clenched. Either the Hounds had been hunting for the puck, or her, or both.
Nikolas said, “Let’s hope this cell of Hounds didn’t have a chance to relay information up the chain of command.”
He didn’t sound very hopeful, and she didn’t blame him. It sounded too much like unrealistic optimism to her as well.
She limped into the destroyed room. Since she’d been planning to stay only for one night, she hadn’t unpacked very much, and the pieces of her sturdy Samsonite luggage had been knocked around, but at least they were intact. Picking through the mess, she collected the rest of her things—a cell phone charger, clean set of clothes for the morning, and her travel toiletry bag.
Straightening with an effort, she pressed a hand against her aching side and said breathlessly, “Okay, I’m ready.”
Nikolas had collected her suitcases. He waited by the door, watching her with an inscrutable expression. As she reached him, he picked up the luggage and led the way down the stairs.
Maggie greeted them down below. She held a cardboard box. Sophie caught a glimpse of tea bags, a bottle of milk, and a loaf of bread tucked inside, along with other items. Maggie said, “It’s not much, but it will get you started in the morning.”
“It’s terrific, thank you.” Sophie set her toiletry bag on top of the box and accepted it. “It was kind of you to think of this with so much else going on.”
“It’s the least I can do in return for what you did for us.” Maggie’s eyes glittered with wetness. “You not only saved my life, but Arran says you saved his too.” She turned to Nikolas. “Thank you, both of you.”